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USC Trojans

09/19/2014

With no game to look forward to this Saturday, now seems like the perfect time to look at the Cardinal's 2015 schedule, released this week by the Pac-12. Far too many things will happen between now and next fall to predict outcomes of any of the games, but let's take a game-by-game trip through the schedule anyway, just for fun. Oh, and keep this in mind as we go -- the schedule sets up perfectly for a run to the playoffs.

09/05/2014

As I was wandering through the Stanford Bookstore a few years ago during Reunion Weekend, I heard an odd conversation between a mother -- presumably a fellow alum -- and her young daughter. The daughter was looking at a Big Game checkers set, and she asked why the other pieces in the set all had Cal logos. The mother's answer baffled me.

"Well, some people think that UC Berkeley is Stanford's rival, but our real rival is USC."

It took every ounce of self-restraint I had not to correct the mother and explain to her all about Axes and John Hopkins, but there was a part of me that understood. While the Cal football program has been circling the drain for the last few years, Big Game victories come with relief, not joy.

Wins over USC, however, have been delicious, and aside from the house-burning in 2009 (which was delicious in its own special way), the games have been phenomenal theater. Stanford fans delighted in trumpeting the Cardinal's four-game winning streak in the series by referring to USC as "Under Stanford Control," but the reality was that the three games between 2010 and 2012 could easily have gone the Trojans' way, just as the Cardinal could easily have won last year.

Making the series even more intriguing has been the similarities between the two teams. As the rest of the conference turned to uptempo spread offenses, Stanford and USC clung stubbornly to their pro-style roots, and their defenses were both built on punishing front sevens that battered opposing quarterbacks and running backs into submission. The Stanford-USC series showcased college football the way it used to be.

The arrival of head coach Steve Sarkisian, however, has changed all that. The Trojan offense has left the huddle behind, and the early reports are either thrilling or terrifying, depending on your perspective. Even as the vultures were circling around the program as team captain Josh Shaw's heroic rescue of his nephew was exposed as a fabrication, an ESPN anchor referred to the university as "a clown college," and a backup running back called his coach a racist all within the space of a week, the Trojans brushed all that dirt of their shoulders and came out blazing in last week's opener.

The USC offense piled up 52 points against Fresno State while running a Pac-12-record 103 plays, tallying 37 first downs and a frightening 701 total yards. A week ago I felt like this was an almost certain win for Stanford, but that performance reminded me of what I should've known all along: this is USC.

Aside from the Sarkisian hire, one of the biggest changes within the program involves the outside perception of quarterback Cody Kessler. When the Cardinal lost to the Trojans in mid November last year, the defensive game plan seemed to make sense: bottle up the running game and force Kessler to make plays to win the game. Kessler responded with the best game of his life, completing 25 of 27 passes for 288 yards and a touchdown.

Since then, he seems to have become even more comfortable. In his last two games (the 2013 bowl game and last week's opener) Kessler has combined for 739 yards and eight touchdowns. Sure, thanks to a scheduling quirk both games were against the porous Fresno State defense, but those numbers would be impressive against anyone.

How he fares against the 2014 Stanford defense, of course, remains to be seen, and that will be one of the determining factors of Saturday's game. This will sound familiar to Stanford fans, but I'll say it anyway. The best way to slow down Kessler and the USC offense will be to keep them on the sidelines. If the Stanford offense can put together some long drives -- and I believe it can -- Kessler and company might have a hard time finding the rhythm they enjoyed against Fresno State.

In addition to that, the Trojan roster still hasn't completely recovered from their recent NCAA sanctions, and some recent injuries have thinned their already thin ranks a bit more. That lack of depth will prove costly in the latter stages of a warm afternoon in Stanford Stadium, and I expect Stanford to control the fourth quarter en route to a 34-17 victory.

But what does the other side think? To find out I touched base with the crew at Reign Of Troy, and editor Alicia De Artola was kind enough to answer a bunch of my questions. (You can read my answers to their Stanford questions by clicking here.) For all you've ever wanted to know about the Trojans, read on!

08/30/2014

Back by popular demand -- or, more accurately, by one person's demand -- is GMC's yearly schedule breakdown. Why wait for the games to be played when you can just read on? As usual, I'll give you my thoughts on each game along with the likelihood of a Cardinal victory, but just for fun I've also assigned a different 80s movie to each matchup. It promises to be entertaining...

August 30 vs. UC DavisMovie: The Sure ThingQuote: "I hope you appreciate the magnitude of your impending good fortune."

I don't know the real reason why UC Davis is on the schedule this year, but it might just be to remind Stanford fans how far the program has come. It was nine years ago that Davis somehow beat Stanford, 20-17, in a game that was surely brought up in the halls of the Stanford athletic department as some voices pushed to drop the football program down to Division II. In less than a decade, Stanford football has gone from being one of the worst teams in the country to one of the nation's elite.

As devastating and shocking as that 2005 loss was, I can't imagine that anyone connected with the 2014 Cardinal is thinking about revenge. No one on the team was even out of middle school at that point, and this team has goals much larger than righting a nine-year-old wrong. This game isn't about revenge, it's about finishing without any major injuries.

I can't imagine that we'll see much from the starters after half time, but while they're in there it'll be interesting to see how the offensive line plays and what the running back rotation looks like. In the second half we should get a look at some of the younger players, including Christian McCaffrey, and the second- and third-string quarterbacks. It'll be fun.

Expected Outcome: This is a sure thing. 100% chance of Stanford victory.

11/17/2013

LOS ANGELES (GMC) -- The five stages of grief can be found in any psychology text book, but they live in the human heart. When Elisabeth Kübler-Ross first put forth her hypothesis in the year that I was born, she was talking about how an individual copes with the death of a loved one, but when pressed, any avid sports fan will tell you that a loss in an important game approximates these same feelings. And so it is today as we look back at Stanford's loss at the hands of the USC Trojans.

11/14/2013

On November 15, 2008, Pete Carrol and his sixth-ranked USC Trojans travelled north to Palo Alto and easily dispatched the Cardinal, 45-23. The Trojans exacted some measure of revenge for their defeat the previous year, a game in which Stanford, as forty-one-point underdogs, shocked the world and upset USC, 24-23. I imagine that as the Trojans savored that revenge game, they must've thought that order had been restored. They must have assumed that they'd go back to beating the Cardinal like a drum. They were wrong. USC hasn't beaten Stanford since then -- and they won't beat them this Saturday.

Stanford steamrolled the Trojans 55-21 the following year in the "What's Your Deal?" game, won back-to-back nailbiters in 2010 and '11, the latter game being the triple-overtime thriller in the Coliseum, and they pulled off another upset last season, topping the Trojans 21-14.

How significant is this streak? Consider this: there is no player on the Stanford roster who has ever lost to USC. (Conversely, Matt Barkley, undoubtedly one of the greatest players in USC history, never beat the Cardinal.) Should Stanford beat the Trojans this Saturday -- and remember, they will -- the string would extend to five straight for the Cardinal, the first such streak for Stanford in the 108-year history of the series. From 1958 to 1990, a span of thirty-three games, Stanford beat USC only three times. Times have certainly changed.

06/27/2013

If you had to put your finger on a single on-field moment that announced the transformation of Stanford football, it would be easy. November 14, 2009, just a bit past 3:00 PM Pacific time in the Los Angeles Coliseum. You know what happened. After a drive that took the heart out of a heartless USC team, the upstart Cardinal took a commanding 48-21 lead with 6:47 to play. Instead of accepting that, head coach Jim Harbaugh famously kept his offense out on the field and went for two. Afterwards he innocently explained that he only wanted to keep his team's positive momentum going.

"I just honestly thought there was an opportunity coming off the ball," he explained, "the way our backs were running and the way we were playing." No one believed him then, but now in an excerpt from its upcoming e-book Rags to Roses, the Stanford Daily reveals the truth we all suspected. Up until now, the best quote we knew from that game was Harbaugh's "What's your deal?," but now we've got another from Harbs -- "I want to put 50 on these motherfuckers." Quite honestly, it doesn't get any better than that. Full for the full story, click here.

09/27/2012

Yes, I know the Washington game kicks off in just a few hours, but here at Go Mighty Card we just can't get enough of Stanford's win over USC, otherwise known as the team Under Stanford Control. (I really wish I had made that up, but I didn't.) Anyway, just click play...

09/20/2012

Here's the fifth episode in the Cardinal Channel's Stanford Football series, "How We Do It." Focusing on game day last Saturday, this week's episode takes viewers inside the locker room for pregame speeches, interviews the principals involved in the game's pivotal plays, and shows the postgame celebration. Spoiler alert: you will get goosebumps.

09/16/2012

If once is an aberration, twice is a trend, and three times is a pattern, what is four times? We'll talk about that important question a bit later, but for now let's focus on what happened on Saturday night.

GMC Book Club

Thanks to a recent donation, as of November 10th, GMC readers have donated a total of 216 books to my classroom! My students are always looking for new and exciting books, so if you'd like to contribute, simply click here! Or, click here to read my original post and find out more!